Is he terrible or terrific? Take a look on the analysis and life lessons from his surge
The South Carolina Democratic presidential primary debate on Feb. 25, 2020 was a perfect example of group dynamics. It showed the richest palette of group roles. Behind-the-scenes power broker, awkward nerd, think tank and outsider Mike Bloomberg. Looking like an eccentric professor and moral authority Bernie Sanders. McKinsey alumni, young and fresh Pete Buttigieg. Bright extrovert, who had chosen a wrong strategy — attacking others, and damaged herself, Elizabeth Warren. The man with big pretensions, believing that he is not equal to other candidates — Joe Biden.
I don’t have any affiliation with the secrets, politics, elections or anything of this kind. But I believe that, like some masterpiece of world classics, this situation contains very powerful lessons, that every spectator can learn if they wish.
I am going to focus on three observations:
- Joe Biden’s respect of brute force;
- why Joe Biden could win this debate and, afterwards, the whole democratic nomination;
- key differences of political systems in Europe and in the U.S. To my opinion, these facts determine that this great country, despite of all efforts, doesn’t have free healthcare for all its citizens, and suffers from numerous environmental and well-being problems.
Let’s tackle first point. Joe Biden seems to be most driven by bending wills and breaking people. We may see him telling smugly about bending Ukrainians to fire their general prosecutor. And committing verbal violence to a helpless retired man who asked him a question: what qualifications his son had for taking the job in Ukraine?
I know very well Biden’s intonations and manner from the last video. I was brought up in early 1990s in the wild streets of the city, near the railway station, where the only “culture” was the “law” of the prison collective cell and cult of the abuse. Even the adult criminals avoid prisons for adolescents because of their most disgusting violence. And I was a half-Korean and a son of a scientist, university professor, which means that I was a target for abuse and I came from another world. I didn’t know what to do when they bullied me.
Now I know, from my being an Orthodox Christian, what the worst can occur to a human who is mocked and humiliated. The worst for him is when he adopts the evil into himself and becomes like his bullies. And this has happened to me. I brought pain to my most cherished people — parents, grandparents and uncle. I played a role in my mother joining Krishna movement and in brake up of my parents’ marriage. Even after many years of seemingly Christian practice, my heart remained cruel. And because of my actions, my mother got seriously ill. Only then, during years of praying and despair, and with a help of persons that I met, I understood what the Christianity is really about and what is the self-sacrifice. Now Mom’s got better. For the last years I am living a life, which, at many aspects, finally is in agreement with my conscience.
So the lesson number one would be: never use brute force in everyday life. This will make your heart cruel. You’ll tend to exploit your beloved ones. You’ll easily miss the situations, when you must put your work and everything aside and serve them, and you may lose the ones you love.
Now comes a part of my story, which I wished I wouldn’t write. Please get me right: it’s not that non-educated low-income people are responsible for “all evil in the world”. Nor would they be worse than others in the sense of morale or goodness —conversely, the opposite might be fair to say. I have people in the communities referred below to whom I owe much. But — sorry, but this part of society, with its conservatism, seems to have risks of being used by authoritarians and the establishment, so the establishment could stay in power and do nothing of the urgently needed reforms. Biden outspokenly named his base support communities, explaining why he did not win those first contests.
The narrative of authoritarians is often the same, appealing to nationalism and cult of brute force, plus an implication that foreign policy is allegedly among the most important things to talk about. During the above mentioned debate of February 25, Biden tried to make impression as the strongest international player comparing to other contenders:
I would be on the phone with China and making it clear, we are going to need to be in your country; you have to be open; you have to be clear; we have to know what’s going on; we have to be there with you, and insist on it and insist, insist, insist… I could get that done. No one up here has ever dealt internationally with any of these world leaders. I’m the only one that has.
He was talking about exerting enforcement in internal business of China without a justification. Why would they do what he says? China was not defeated by the U.S. in war like Japan, Germany or Iraq. China is the top holder of American debt. What more price will be to pay? It’s not the same as his real experience: convincing China to enter into Paris agreements, or intervening in China-Japan’s territorial dispute on Japan’s side to disrupt the China’s attempt to set a no-fly zone. In the last example, two B-52 bombers had been sent through the no-fly zone well in advance, more than a week before Biden was sent to China. In fact his special relations with China seem to be a liability, not an asset.
But he has achieved his goals in this debate, making it the turning point of his campaign. He looked far most dominant on the stage. If there may be any positive lesson to take from Biden, here it is. How to look confident, for example, in order to convince job interviewers that you are the best fit for the job?
- talking: no delays (unlike Mike Bloomberg), plain and easy-to-understand logic, short sentences, energetically;
- eye contact: all the time looking in the eyes of the interviewer, immediately stopping yourself if an interviewer seems to show: “Enough”;
- posture: carrying yourself always erectly (in contrast to Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg).
And the other lesson may be: don’t hate Biden. Hating Biden or his supporters — as with any hate — would put an enormous harmful burden on soul. They are humans like myself, and personally I have no right to judge them.
I don’t want to say, whether people need to vote for Biden or not. Would he be able to implement democratic values? Paradoxes happen. This is something which everybody has to decide on their own.
But I would like to try to put it into wider perspective. And here we come at a critical point, which crystallizes the difference between U.S. and European political systems.
In short, this difference is the following. After Second World War, in Europe (and then in Latin America) has emerged political movement called “Christian Democracy”. Christian democracy is considered centre-right on cultural, social and moral issues, but considered centre-left with respect to economic and labor issues, civil rights, and foreign policy as well as the environment.
In the Untied States there is nothing similar. The U.S. political system locks the religious believers into a conservative wing of the Republican Party: centre-right or right. They have to embrace keeping government spending low — with an exception for the military expenditure.
And here is another key difference between U.S. and Europe. Industries of life and death—which are, correspondingly, health care and in wider sense, military —always stand in contradistinction in public spending. One time the powers of death were smashed — during 1960s with Anti-War and Civil Rights movements. It is remarkable that it was associated with the name of religious leader: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. But after that, and especially after President Clinton used military force against Belgrad — first time in history without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council — the U.S. had fallen in deep trap of the death industries lobbyists. Because of military expenditure, the U.S. is increasing its debt and failing to implement social policies. This is something which is highly unlikely for the European countries.
In Europe, along with Christian democratic parties, there are the Social democratic parties (and Democratic socialists). They often formed coalition with Christian democratic parties.
So in Europe both Christian democratic parties and Social democratic parties often had similar political “left”-views on healthcare, and they have built universal health care systems. Now all major country in the world, except U.S, India and South Africa, has free and universal healthcare. Christian democracy in Europe has formed a new model of capitalism, called “social capitalism”, and has resulted in founding the European Union and other major outcomes.
By contrast, the traditional religious believers in the U.S. are by all means squeezed out from the political “left” (from the Democratic party). Since 2012 the Democratic party had changed its platform, so that it is in the pockets of the abortion lobby. Bernie Sanders had summarized, that every Democrat is required to be “pro-choice”. The believers can’t vote for free health care for all and other Democratic causes, because at the same time, it will be a vote for abortion, euthanasia, etc.
Christian democracy is an unique phenomenon. “Nowhere was this achievement more pronounced than in this movement’s ability to offer political homes to self-identified Christians”. Just imagine the party, which members won’t have to say, I came to Washington D.C. a Democrat and left a plutocrat, referring to shattering youth illusions. Imagine decision-makers, doing their job as supposed to, not making very much money and having almost unknown ability to say “no” to more money, breaking free from lobbyists and special interests. Coming from everywhere in cravings to do something useful. Qualified to change status quo of elites and implement hardest reforms (remember rooting out mafia in Italy), cleaning the society from the dirt from top to down.
Let us try to see religious believers not as a burden on the way of progress, but as a staunch ally in asserting the “left” social-economic values, building on the European and Latin American recent history. Joe Biden is a product of his time, but: times, they are changing. Please look here at the sequence of two songs, performed by the same artists. If once this combination became possible, so why not again!
P.S. And now the country-cradle of the Christian Democracy (post-war Germany), led for many years and now by the Christian Democratic Union, is named to be the country that will triumph in the post-pandemic world. It has showed during this crisis, how its healthcare is really different from other countries of the West!
